Of Gas Stations and Constellations
by AKADropsofJupiter
Summary: (hmm... what to say to rope you in...) Eight years in the future, an angsty situation forces Helga to make contact with someone that I'm sure you all can guess...


A/N Hi, I'm Courtney. But you might know me as Craig Bartlett, creator and producer of Hey Arnold!... Yeah. Riiiight. I own nothing, I'm just a girl with a dream...

  
  


Yes, this is an angsty fic. If you're gonna make with the flames ("I hate angst u suk I hope u die"), then just click Back right now. All I'll do is laugh at your atrocious spelling and send your 'comments' off to my friends for a few laughs.

  
  


I had a beta on this, and he (she? Hmm...) was pretty... how to put it nicely... dickish. Lol, sorry. But he/she was. Funny, but dickish. Thanks to that person all the same, though, if they're reading this- you did help me improve my fic, even if you could have been just a tad bit nicer about it. Thanks.

  
  


Dedicated to my friend Amy, with whom I have long and excessive talks about destiny, and Phil, who knows me better than anyone. I love you both.

  
  


And so... Let's make with the angst!

  
  


~*~*~*~*~*~

  
  


Helga was nervous. As the expensive white sports car rumbled around her, she felt her body become more and more tense with each passing block. 'Calm down,' she told herself, and she tried to force her body into listening. 

She glanced at the boy sitting in the driver's seat out of the corner of her eye. Ryan Jorstead, dressed in black tuxedo and looking for all he was worth like the handsomest boy in school, stared out of the front windshield, his concentration completely focused on the road. Loud, almost ear-splitting music pulsated through the car, and his head bobbed slightly along with the beat. Helga didn't know what it was, but something about Ryan made her uncomfortable. 

No one, especially not Helga, would have ever guessed that Ryan would ask her to prom. She hadn't gone last year, when she was a junior, and she had fully expected to stay home again. But then one day in American History, Ryan had struck up a conversation. He asked her out on a date, and they'd gone for pizza and a movie. By the end of the week she was going to the dance. When he'd asked her, Helga had almost said no. She really didn't care about prom like the rest of the girls did; she viewed it as an excuse for the Beautiful People to get fancied up and show the rest of the school how much better they were. But something had made her say yes. She was graduating in a month- she was going off to college and starting over in thirty days. Why not take this last chance to be sociable with her classmates? 

So she said yes.

And now she was regretting it. She'd had fun at the actual dance- the hotel it was held at was grand and majestic, and a lot of people had been there. Phoebe had been there with Gerald, Rhonda with Sid, Sheena with Stinky. Lila had shown up with some attractive guy who possessed the personality of a Neanderthal and had left him at the punch table almost immediately for another of the same type. (Ok, I'll lay off on Lila-Bashing. I don't want to offend anyone. But if you'd like to hear my spiel, send me an e-mail @ [llamachic8@aol.com)][1] Childhood friends as well as newer ones had all been in attendance, with only one noticeable absence. 

Arnold had not been there. 

She had, of course, inquired about him, making sure not to seem too interested. Gerald told her that Arnold said he just wasn't in the mood for the whole dancing and laughing gig. Plus, he didn't have a date. Helga had been secretly happy about the latter. She considered Arnold and her obsession for him to be in the past, a long buried relic of her childhood. But at the same time, no matter how much she told herself she'd moved on, seeing him with anyone else still hurt.

After the principal crowned Rhonda the prom queen, Ryan had asked her if she wanted to leave. She agreed; the music was giving her a headache and her shoes were pinching her feet. She'd assumed that they'd go to a party, or that he would take her home. 

She'd been wrong. He'd driven right by her house, and they were now currently on some street that she didn't know. For the first time in at least twenty minutes, she spoke to him.

"Ryan?" He didn't answer her. She tried a little louder.

"Ryan?" When she again got no answer, she cranked the volume on the CD player all the way down. 

"Ryan!" she shouted, and was pleased when he jumped.

"What the hell? You don't need to shout, you know," he said, taking one hand off of the steering wheel to rub his ear. His gaze stayed focused on the street.

"Where are we going?"

He took a few seconds to answer. "Somewhere nice." His words were slightly slurred together, as if he were tired.

After a few more minutes of quiet driving, Ryan turned into the parking lot of a seedy-looking hotel on the outskirts of the city. "Here we are," he said, and finally turned to look at her. He was grinning, but his eyes didn't seem to be focusing. His speech had been slurred, and now his eyes weren't focusing. Her mind suddenly flashed to the image of Ryan at the dance. He'd had a lot of punch. What was that old joke about spiking drinks? She couldn't remember.

"You're drunk," she stated, softly but firmly.

"Am not," he mumbled, and leaned over and kissed her. It wasn't the first time. On their last date he'd kissed her. It had been alright, if not a little rough. But this kiss now was different. He wasn't just rough about it; there was an aggressiveness he hadn't had before. And despite what he said, his mouth tasted of alcohol. She shoved him away. 

"Get off. You're drunk and I want to go home!" she insisted.

"I think we should have some fun first," he urged, and he put his hand just a little above her knee and squeezed.

She slapped his hand off. "I don't think so." Fear bubbled up inside of her, and she thought of the fliers taped to the walls of the girls' bathroom at school. "It CAN Happen to You," and "Saying No Isn't Always the Way Out." She'd said no. It hadn't worked. She fumbled for the handle of the door and opened it, trying to stay calm. "You know what? I'll get myself home. Don't worry about it."

He grabbed her arm. "What are you talking about? You're staying here with me. I already got the room!" He tried to pull her back. 

Helga lost it. Before she'd been afraid. Now she was just pissed off. If there was one thing she hated, it was being jerked around by someone. 

"Let go of me, asshole!" She threw an arm back into the car with all of her strength. She felt her closed fist strike the bridge of his nose, and he bellowed with pain. She wrenched her arm from his grasp and ran across the street towards a gas station, dodging cars and ignoring the curses yelled at her from the drivers. 

Helga pulled open the doors and hurried inside, attracting the gaze of the pimply twentysomething behind the counter. She turned to look out of the glass windows lining the wall of the station. Ryan's car was still in the parking lot of the hotel, but after a few seconds it pulled out, tires squealing. Helga breathed a sigh of relief. 

She turned back towards the cashier, and found him staring at her. She suddenly realized how bizarre she must look- an out-of-breath girl in a pink prom dress with her hair all done up standing in a service station. It hit her that she had no way to get home, and that even if she did, she had no idea how to get there. 

"Um... You wouldn't happen to have a map, would you?" she asked him. Stanley, his name tag said.

He wordlessly pointed to a rack of maps on the wall behind her, never once removing his eyes from her body. Helga didn't like the way he was looking at her. 'Doesn't seem to be my night for guys,' she thought, and almost found the understatement of the fact to be amusing. She grabbed a map of the city and studied it. "Where are we?" she asked Stanley. 

"Let me show you." His voice was high and squeaky, and it set her teeth to gritting. She laid the map on the counter, and he pointed out where they were at. She traced the distance from her current location to her house. She was a long way from home.

"Are there any subways around here?" 

"Nope," said Stanley, and he seemed pleased with the fact. Helga was almost relieved; she wouldn't want to ride the subway by herself this late at night anyway. She had no money, because she'd left her purse in Ryan's car in her hurry to get away from him. 

"Are you stranded, little lady?" smirked Stanley, and Helga restrained a shivered. This guy was scary. 

"No," she replied shortly. "Just broke." Helga eyed him warily, and asked what she had to. "Can I borrow cabfare?"

Stanley grinned. "Sorry, little lady. I don't have enough." He turned his pockets out to demonstrate the fact, spilling a few quarters and dimes on the counter.

"That's fine," said Helga. "I'll just borrow enough for the payphone then." And before he could argue she snatched up the change and bolted out the door for the phone by the gas pumps. 

When she was in the phone booth, she counted the money in her hand. Seventy cents. It was exactly enough for two phone calls. She dialed up her own house first. 

After nine rings the answering machine picked up. Helga put the receiver down with a clunk, panic beginning to fill her. How was she going to get home? Anyone she could possibly call would probably still be at prom. Even if they weren't, she only had enough money for one more phone call, and she didn't want to take the chance of wasting it on someone who might not be able to help. She couldn't walk home, considering the distance. And it was already about eleven o'clock, she didn't want to be alone in this part of the city at night anyway. Going back into the gas station with Captain Creepy wasn't much of an option either. 

She cast her mind for anything that she could do to get home. She suddenly remembered that Arnold hadn't gone to the dance. 

There was a telephone book hanging from the phone by a metal chain, but Helga didn't need it. She dialed Arnold's number with trembling fingers. If he wasn't home, she would be in very serious trouble.

After three rings, someone answered. "Hello?" said a female voice. "Colonel Bradford? We have an emergency on our hands; wild tiger's attacking the village!" 

Helga rolled her eyes. "Listen, lady. I need to talk to Arnold." 

"Kimba?"

"Uh... Sure."

There was a pause.

"Hello?"

"Arnold?"

"Yeah. Who's this?"

"It's Helga." 

There was another pause.

"Hi Helga. What's up?" Arnold sounded confused, and she couldn't blame him. Helga didn't know what to say. Telling him the details of her night wasn't exactly a good option. She began to form a plausible story in her mind.

"Hello? Helga? What's wrong?"

The concerned tone in his voice made all of the lies go swirling from her head. "Arnold, you have to come help me. I'm at some gas station across the city and I don't have any way to get home and the cashier is really creepy and he keeps calling me 'little lady' and I didn't have any money so I had to bum off him and it's too far to walk and you're the only one at home-"

"Wait a minute. Where's Ryan?" Helga wasn't surprised that Arnold knew who she was supposed to be with; it had been the buzz of the school for a week.

"He's... gone."

"Gone where?"

"I don't know," she snapped, irrationally angry at Arnold for asking questions. "He left me at some hotel. Can you help me or not?"

There was silence for a minute. "Where are you at?" he asked finally, and Helga closed her eyes with relief. She told him the name of the gas station and recited the street name, thankful she'd payed attention to the map. 

"I'll be there in thirty minutes, ok?"

"Ok. Bye, Arnold." She hung up the phone and leaned her back against the side of the booth, closing her eyes as she sighed. She was going to be alright. 

After a minute or two she walked back into the station. Stanley leered at her. "Do you need a ride home, little lady? I'll be happy to take you when my shift's over, but it'll cost ya."

Helga planted her hands on the counter and glared at him with more hostility than she'd ever glared before. "A friend is coming to get me. And my name is _not_ little lady."

Stanley's smirk faded and was replaced with a steely glare, but Helga was already on her way to the bathroom. It was a dingy room with one bare lightbulb hanging from the ceiling and no individual stalls, just a single toilet and sink. Helga was glad; that meant the door would lock. She twisted the lock and tested the door handle. It was secure.

Helga splashed some water on her face to calm her nerves. She paced around the bathroom for a few minutes, then closed the lid on the toilet and sat on it, propping her feet up on the metal handicapped bar that ran the length of the wall. The layers of her pink dress floated around her legs.

Her fingers idly played with a small flower embroidered onto the fabric. When Ryan asked her to go to prom with him, she had almost refused. But once she said yes, she'd put some effort into looking good. Not because she cared all that much, but because that was the way she was; she tried to do everything to the fullest extent. Pink was still her favorite color, even after all those years, so she'd gotten a dress of that color. She's even done her hair, a real rarity for her. 

Anger suddenly welled up in her. She'd spent a lot of money on the dress and taken the time to get ready, and Ryan hadn't even noticed; not once had he told her that she looked nice. She realized that he probably didn't care for her one bit, he was just looking for an easy lay. Damn him and his Macho Man attitude. So his parents were rich. So he drove a nice car. Who freaking cared? God, she felt so betrayed.

As angry as Helga was at Ryan right then, she was more angry with herself. She'd fallen for the Mr. Popularity routine and she knew it. She'd let her guard down, let him win her over, and this had happened. Everything that had happened that night had been her fault, and she hated herself for it.

Helga jerked back her foot, which was already sore from the shoes she was wearing, and kicked the wall as hard as she could. She cried out at the stab of pain that it sent through her ankle. 'Great,' she thought. 'Will this wonderful night never end?' She groaned and buried her head in her knees.

A sudden knocking on the bathroom door made her jump. It was that loser Stanley, she knew it. Helga jumped to her feet, prepared to let him know just what she thought of him. She undid the lock and threw open the door, her mouth already open and the first insult bubbling on her tongue, and...

It was Arnold. All of the jeers she had planned fizzled and died in her mouth. She didn't quite know what to say. She just looked at him.

"Hi Helga," he said, as if it was the most normal thing in the world to pick her up from dismal gas stations in the middle of the night. 

"Um... How did you know I was in here?" she asked, unable to think of anything else to say to him.

"That helpful cashier over there told me." While Arnold kept his voice cheerful, the look on his face showed that while he thought many things about Stanley, helpful certainly wasn't one of them. Helga almost smiled. "Are you ready to go?"

"I'm ready," she said, her mood lightening enormously. She was so happy to see him that she had to bite the insides of her cheeks from beaming at him.

They made for the door, and Helga couldn't help but give Stanley a cheeky wave over her shoulder. He became furious.

"Hey! That bitch owes me money!"

The happiness Helga had felt just moments earlier evaporated, and she whipped around to face him. "You child molesting freak!" She lunged towards him, but Arnold grabbed her arms.

"How much?" he asked, though his nonchalant demeanor had disappeared.

"Five bucks!"

"You're such a liar!" Helga shrieked. "You only had change in your pockets! I only took seventy cents!" The rage she'd been suppressing for the last hour flowed through her, and dress or no dress, it was all she could do not to vault over the counter and pound Stanley's pimply face into the ground.

"It's no big deal, Helga. I'll pay the guy the five dollars." Arnold reached into his back pocket and brought out a leather wallet. Helga grabbed his hand. 

"But I didn't-"

"Yeah, I know. But it's not a big deal." Arnold handed Stanley a five. "Let's go, Helga." He opened the door for her, and after glaring at Stanley one last time, she stepped out into the night. Helga heard the door shut behind her, but when she turned around to look at Arnold he was still inside. He was standing with his hands on the counter, just as she had earlier that night, and he was glaring at Stanley with such force that Helga could almost see the heat coming from his gaze. She saw Arnold's lips moving. She imagined the way his voice sounded when he got very angry; he didn't shout like most people. Instead, he spoke softer than normal, but his tone of voice revealed just how angry he was. Helga was about to open the door so that she could hear what Arnold was saying when he turned and walked out. 

Once the door had snicked shut behind him he sighed and shoved his hands in his pockets. He looked at her and smiled. "Let's get out of this dump."

Helga turned to follow him, throwing one last glance over her shoulder. She saw Stanley throw a rude gesture their way, and she just rolled her eyes. What a coward, she thought, only doing things like that once our backs were turned

She was dying to know what he'd said to Stanley but doubted she'd get a straight answer if she asked. "Where's your car?" she inquired instead, and he pointed to the side of the station. 

As they walked over to it, Helga couldn't help but notice how much older than Ryan's car it was. Arnold's car was dented, scratched, and that one particular shade of brown usually reserved for mud puddles. (A/N- My first beta-reader screamed at me the words "Green Packard! Green Packard!" Ok, this is about nine years in the future from where the show takes place. Even if the Packard is still running by then, do you think that Arnold, an eighteen year old boy, is going to want to drive his grandpa's car? Didn't think so. The Packard might be cool, and Arnold might be some sort of super-human, but he's still a guy.)

But as Helga sat down in the passenger seat, she realized that Arnold's car was much more comfortable than Ryan's had been. There was more foot room, and the seat was softer. 'Maybe there is something to these older cars,' she thought, and smiled. 

Arnold hopped in beside her and turned the key. The engine produced a noise that was a bit like the cough of someone with chest congestion. He tried again. The engine rumbled for a second and then died. 

"It'll start, don't worry," Arnold said, but Helga couldn't help but notice the trace of anxiety in his voice. He smiled at her. "And if it doesn't, we could always ask Stanley for help."

Helga snorted. "Right. That could work, since the guy is obviously the epitome of learning and knowledge."

Arnold laughed. "Hey, you never know."

Helga turned her head to look at him.

"Ok," he conceded, "maybe sometimes you do."

Arnold tried the key again, and this time the engine roared to life. Helga observed that mufflers were obviously not this car's thing. As they pulled out of the parking lot Helga felt her body lose some of the tension that had been building in it all night. She let herself sink back into the seat, relaxing for the first time in hours. 

"Do you want me to turn the heat on?" Arnold asked her, and she nodded. He flicked a switch and there was the sound of air rushing out of the heater. The car became warm in a surprisingly short amount of time.

"So..." Arnold began, and Helga tensed up again. 'And now comes the Twenty Questions,' she thought bitterly. 

"If it's all the same to you, I'd rather not talk about it," she said, keeping her eyes pointed ahead and crossing her arms over her chest. "I mean, no offense, or anything."

Arnold glanced at her before refocusing his attention to the road. "Fair enough, I guess." 

Irrational tears sprang to her eyes. How could he be like that? She called him from a shoddy little freak show in the middle of the night, asked him to pick her up, and he didn't even demand an explanation? He was just so... Helga turned her head away from him and quickly wiped her eyes. She suddenly wished that she hadn't put her love for Arnold behind her. Who knew how that might have turned out? Instead of what could have been, here she was, Helga G. Patacki, crying in the passenger seat of Arnold's car because some jerk had hurt her feelings. 

The buildings they were passing by blurred and became indistinguishable from one another as the tears began to flow down Helga's cheeks, try as she might to keep them in. She concluded that this must have been the worst night of her life, if she could let herself cry in front of Arnold like this. 

Helga felt a hand touch her shoulder.

"Helga?" Arnold asked softly. "Are you alright?"

"He was drunk." As she spoke, Helga kept her face to the window. She tried to keep her tone as light as possible, but her voice sounded choked. "He was drunk, and he drove us to that hotel that was across from the gas station." She expected Arnold to say something, but he kept silent. She was grateful for it. "I don't know how I didn't realize he was drunk until we got there. Stupid of me. Anyway, he said he wanted to have some fun, and that he'd reserved us a room, but I told him I wanted to go home. He said he wouldn't take me. I tried to leave but he grabbed my arm. So then-"

Here, Arnold interrupted. "He didn't..."

"No." She gave a bitter laugh. "Probably would have, except I punched him in the nose and ran away." She looked at him and laughed again. "For some reason he didn't seem to like Old Betsy very much." She shook a fist to emphasize the point, but her lame attempt at humor only made the tears come faster. She turned back to the window, still not used to crying in front of him. 

"What happened then?"

"Then I borrowed some money from the wonderful Stanley and called my house, where no one answered. But hey, no big surprise. Miriam's usually passed out by eight, and Bob's too busy watching TV to worry about something like the phone. I figured that everyone else would still be at prom, so I called you. Rest is history."

Except for the sound of Helga's occasional sniffling, the car was silent.

"What a jerk!" he finally said. 

"You think?" Her voice came out sounding much more bitter than she'd intended. "God, I was such an idiot," she whispered.

"Helga." Arnold steered the car to the shoulder of the road and brought it to a halt, letting the engine run. "You're not an idiot." He didn't get an answer; Helga didn't think she was capable of speech at the moment. "What happened wasn't your fault." He seemed to be searching for something else to say to cheer her up. "Who needs that guy? He's the idiot! I mean... Screw him!" 

Helga couldn't help it; she burst into laughter. "Actually, that was kind of what I was trying to avoid in the first place!" Arnold looked confused for a second, and then his eyes widened with comprehension. 

"Oh my God... I mean... I didn't... Oh God, I'm so sorry."

His obvious distress only made Helga laugh harder. Arnold just looked relieved that she was laughing rather than decking him. Once her hysterics had calmed down a bit, she was finally able to talk. "Thanks. I needed that," she said through her subsiding laughter. She wiped the last of the tears from her eyes and sniffed. "Do you have Kleenex in here or something?"

"There's napkins in the glove compartment. Best I can do." As Helga got one out and blew her nose, Arnold put the car into drive and pulled back onto the road. 

"Where do you want me to take you? Home?"

Helga surprised herself by saying no. "I think I want to walk around for a bit, actually. If that's ok."

"Fine with me." They rode in silence for the rest of the trip. Arnold drove the car to the Sunset Arms and parked in the alley. "Where are we walking to?" he asked her.

"I don't know. Let's just walk."

They strolled down the sidewalk together a little uncomfortably. Helga couldn't remember the last time she'd been this close to Arnold, or so nice to him for that matter. After elementary school they'd been seperated more. They'd been in different classes, and had very few classes together in high school. Helga had focused on mostly English courses and Arnold on science. She credited their different schedules to a lot of the reason why she had lost most of her obsession. At first it had been torture, but Helga had done her best to move on. It had been one thing to secretly pine for him, and admire him from afar; it was another thing completely to be depressed simply because of his absence. She had looked at herself in the mirror one day and decided that she wasn't going to do it any longer. She'd been happier since that day, if not just a little emptier. 

They walked past many of the places that Helga remembered from childhood. There was Mr. Green's Meat Store, a dusty For Sale sign hanging in the window. Mr. Green had died of a heart attack when Helga was thirteen. They passed Geraldfield, which still looked as good as it ever had; the new generation of neighborhood kids used it as a baseball field themselves. Helga was glad to see it. She's always had such a good time there, whether she was playing baseball with the gang or hiding behind the scoreboard with her locket. 

"Do you remember when we fixed up Geraldfield?" she asked Arnold.

He gave her a reminiscent little smile. "Of course. Who could forget the adults all fighting like they were our age?"

"Yeah. We had some good times here." Quiet fell between them again, still uneasy but not as much so.

They approached the park. "Let's go find a bench," she said, and they turned onto the paved path that wound through the trees. They walked past a humongous weeping willow, it's branches brushing the ground. Helga smiled briefly at it. She could remember standing in the shelter of its limbs and reciting poetry about Arnold. She'd even carved "H + A" inside a heart on its trunk. She'd brought her little pink notebook there hundreds of times to write; she'd found it strangely peaceful to be so hidden from everthing, yet still right in the middle of it all. A lifetime of memories swirled around inside of Helga's head.

Arnold's voice brought her back to earth. "Will this one work?" He was pointing to a low bench that was partially in the shadow of an elm tree. 

"Whatever." Helga plunked herself down on it, and he sat next to her. She stretched her legs out and winced as she wiggled her toes. "Damn shoes," she muttered. She reached down and removed them. "I don't know why I went for the heels. It's not like anyone could see them anyway."

"I think you look really nice." 

She made a scoffing sound. "Oh God, Arnold. I'm not feeling that sorry for myself." 

"No. I mean it." There was something in his voice that made Helga believe that he really meant it, that he wasn't just being polite. She fiddled with the strap on one of her shoes to keep from looking at him; she could feel herself blushing.

"Oh. Um... Ok."

They sat for a few minutes without speaking. Helga tilted her head up towards the sky. The lights of the city blocked out most of the stars, but she was still able to see a few.

"That's where the Big Dipper should be," she said, and pointed to the spot in the sky. 

"How can you tell?"

"I went on a mad astronomy kick back in seventh grade. See those two stars? Those are the right side of the cup."

They lapsed into silence again. A cold breeze blew through the park, and Helga shivered a little; the straps on her dress were very thin.

"Here." Arnold started to shrug out of his coat. "Wear this."

She shook her head at him. "That's very chivalrous of you, but no. It won't do me any good to watch you freeze."

He handed over the jacket anyway. "I've got a sweatshirt on. Just take it."

She glared at him, silently refusing, but he looked right back with a determined expression on his face. After realizing that he wasn't going to give up, she rolled her eyes and grabbed it from him. Helga draped it over her shoulders, trying not to notice how the skin on her arms was tingling.

"Remember those poems we had to write about stars, back in freshman year?" he asked, looking at the sky again. 

"Yeah," she laughed. "That totally sucked." Helga remembered how hard it had been for her, to have a set topic that her poetry had to cover. "I put in a bunch of sappy crap about fate and the future. The teacher lapped it right up."

"So you don't believe in fate?"

"No. I don't think that anyone wrote my script for me," she answered. "Besides, if someone's directing how my life goes, they're doing a pretty crappy job of it. (A/N- That would be me, ;-) ) How about you?"

"I don't believe in it either. I believe in destiny, though." 

She gave him a skeptical look. "And the difference is...?"

"I think that fate means a series of preordained events, but destiny is just the end result. The final destination. I think that there are certain destinations for every person, but that the way to get there is the individual's choice." He looked at her. "Does that make any sense?"

Helga considered for a minute. "No," she said. Arnold sighed and looked back up at the sky. She could tell that she'd disappointed him in some way. 

She reached down and pulled a long piece of grass that was growing next to the leg of the bench they were sitting on. She stretched it between her thumbs and blew. The only sound that Helga produced was a pathetic little squeak. She never had been able to work that trick, no matter how much she tried. 

When Arnold saw what she was trying to do, he plucked a blade of his own and made a long, piercing whistle. 

"Show off."

"Thank you."

She glanced over at him and noticed the time on his watch. It was almost one o'clock. "It's getting late. We should go."

The walk home was as quiet as the previous journey, but it was no longer uneasy. Rather, the silence between them seemed to be almost thoughtful. 

Even though it was at least an extra ten minutes out of his way, Arnold walked Helga all the way to her stoop.

She tried a last-ditch effort at being polite. "Do you... want to come in, or anything?"

"Nah. I need to be getting home too." But despite this claim, he didn't make any sort of move to leave. They both stood awkwardly, not sure of what to do next.

"Uh... Here's your jacket."

Arnold took it from her without speaking.

Silence again fell between them. The thought that this would be the time for that traditional goodnight kiss flitted across Helga's mind, there and gone in one hopeful second that she barely had time to register.

"I should go in."

"Yeah."

Neither of them moved.

"Arnold?"

"Yeah?"

"Um... It's just...." She was embarrased by what she wanted to say. "I mean... Thank you for everything tonight," she blurted out in a rush. "You saved my sanity, you know."

"You're welcome. It was no problem." He sounded genuine, and Helga's mouth twitched in an uncontrollable smile.

"I really should go," he said reluctantly. He turned away and called over his shoulder at her, "I'll see you at school, ok?"

"Ok."

She watched him go. As he passed under a streetlamp on the corner, he turned back to look at her. He smiled and waved, and she returned both gestures. When he continued to walk away she stood and turned to go inside. Helga had already opened the door when something inside her soul made her call out to him.

"Hey Arnold!"

He turned and came running back to her. When Arnold reached her, he was panting a little and his cheeks were slightly pink.

"Yeah, Helga?"

"I... I guess it does make sense, the more I think about it."

"What makes sense?"

"That thing you said in the park... about destiny.

A small flicker of a smile crossed Arnold's lips as he climbed the stairs of her stoop to stand in front of her. "Really?" he asked, and she put as much sincerity as she could into her reply.

"Yeah. Really." She looked at him. And then he bent his head down, tilted his chin forward, and pressed his lips onto hers.

Helga was still for a moment before responding. The nine-year old in her kept her body from moving. The Helga who wore pigtails and big floppy bows and carried around a locket with Arnold's picture in it rejoiced that her fantasies had finally come true. That Helga just stood there, with Arnold kissing her at last, and reveled in it.

And then the present Helga took over and she kissed him back. His arms circled her waist; hers went around his neck. She noticed little details- the feel of Arnold's eyelashes fluttering against her cheeks, the way that he smelled like pine trees and cold night air and something just uniquely Arnold.

When the kiss finally ended, they both stood there for one eternal moment. Their breath, both slightly quickened, mixed together. Helga felt something inside of her click into place, like that one piece of a puzzle that didn't seem to fit anywhere finally finding its mark.

A car horn honked in the next street over, making them jump and breaking the moment. Helga and Arnold stepped back from each other, both of them blushing. Helga suddenly couldn't look at him. She stared at the lower half of her dress, finding it to be the most interesting thing in the world.

"Well," he said after a very long minute of silence.

"Yeah." They both laughed nervously.

"So... Goodnight, Helga," he said, stepping down from the stoop.

"Goodnight." She turned again to go inside.

"Sweet dreams," he called suddenly from the sidewalk.

Helga turned her head and looked at him for the first time since they'd kissed. His eyes were bashful, but she could detect a tinge of hope in them. She smiled broadly.

"You too, Football Head. Sweet dreams." And with that, she stepped inside and closed the door behind her.

As she climbed the stairs to her bedroom Helga reflected on the night. She was suddenly a bit weary as she recalled everything that had happened. It had been nothing like what she'd hoped for, but she didn't mind. She liked it better the way it had gone. She flicked on the light and looked around her room, expecting it to look different somehow. But it was the same as always, and she took some strange comfort in knowing that it, at least, had not changed.

Helga crossed to her window and peeked at the sky, wanting one last glimpse at the stars before turning in for the night. Her eyes were involuntarily drawn to a point down the street that was almost out of sight. A solitary figure was walking, hands crammed in his pockets and head tilted upwards.

"Yeah. Sweet dreams, Arnold," she whispered, and turned to get ready for bed.

  
  


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   [1]: mailto:llamachic8@aol.com)



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